There’s a single on Brisbane un-rock band Blank Realm’s third album Grassed Inn that sounds like it should be soundtracking a government health warning video about the dangers of driving drunk to the beach. The impishly Falling Down the Stairs – surely inspired by one too many stoned nights down Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley – trails false leads and woozy keyboard runs at every turn, underpinned by a disorientating monster of a bass line.

Tonight, it’s just one of nine highlights in a storming set of off-kilter psychedelia and motorik grooves that culminates in a fan grabbing hold of the lighting rig and nearly pulling it down onto the heads of the throbbing mass of pitcher-waving fans. Nine songs, nine highlights. Drunken, hardened music critics pull me to one side, raving about great Brisbane bands and incredible live shows: a fan lights up a joint and ceremoniously passes it around during a celebratory rendition of Go Easy – a song that leaves you yearning for your sea legs. It’s a stunning demonstration of… well, what can happen when a band forges their own path, away from the harsh glare of big city bright lights.

Some folk say that Blank Realm are the greatest live band in Australia (scratch that, the world). That Daniel and Sarah are the new Royal Trux, that during the last three or four years since the band have been together, they’ve somehow invented rock’n’roll all over again. (That last statement might well be partly true: you can hear the band’s torpid, woozy presence on the newer Brisbane bands.) As local critic Ben Green (as seen here tonight, cheerleading the dancers) puts it, “It’s what Springsteen would have sounded like if he really was the “next Dylan” and that meant the psychedelic, speed-freak Dylan of Tombstone Blues and eye and rooftops and Quasimodo.”

No one cares about that tonight, though.

We just want to dance.

The set begins with a couple of incredible songs: the turbocharged newie Back to the Flood and fantastically playful Cleaning up my Mess, whose keyboard refrain always reminds me of 70s children’s tripped-out icons, the Clangers (the melody is pure Zombies). Daniel is already a matted mess of smiles, his trademark button-down blue shirt soaked through. Sarah is bouncing up and down with abandon: her voice might well be a “silken purr” on record, but tonight she’s near feral. Third sibling Luke is unshakeable on bass, which is to the good as newer member Luke Walsh rips out licks with abandon. It’s a full-on space rock overload.

Bulldozer Love is circular, mesmeric – like the effect you feel Primal Scream were looking to achieve on More Light, but never managed. Violet Delivery trails a lineage from the Velvet Underground-influenced drone rock of Spacemen 3 and back again.

It’s a hometown celebration, this Blank Realm album launch. Old men tap their walking sticks next to gyrating teenagers: everywhere, people can be seen lurching blearily and happily, stumbling into each other’s space. Reach You on the Phone lingers like melodrama. Full Moon Door is a cacophonic calamitous crush of cymbals and false chords. It’s 2am and no one wants to go home, no one wants it to stop.